Pesach (Passover) Cooking Tips

Many people are frustrated at how difficult it is to come up with meals for
Pesach and how bland and tasteless Pesach meals can be. Actually, it's not that
difficult if you reorient your thinking. It's human nature to focus on the
things you can't have, so many people make the mistake of trying to figure out
how to make breakfast cereal, waffles, macaroni and cheese and pizza for
Passover and wind up with very poor substitutes. Instead of focusing on the
things you can't have, you should focus on the things you can have.

So let's focus on some foods you might want to eat for breakfast, lunch or
dinner and some fruits and vegetables that are permitted. I will also provide a
few substitution suggestions and a few recipes. But before we get started, a
few words about finding Passover food in your local grocery store.

Kosher-for-Passover Certification

Pesach foods generally require special Kosher-for-Passover certification.
Regular kashrut certification is not sufficient
for Pesach, and many foods that are perfectly kosher year-round are not kosher
for Pesach. Look for a "P" (not the word "pareve"!) to the right of the
hekhsher, like the one at top right, or the letters KFP (Kosher for Passover)
or KP, or the words Kosher for Passover in English or Hebrew, seen at bottom right.

In areas with a significant Jewish population, grocery stores often gather
Passover items together in a single aisle. Be aware that some supermarkets are
very sloppy about what they shelve in their Passover aisles. The Acme
supermarket near me routinely mixes the Kosher-for-Passover sardines (packed in
olive oil) with the year-round sardines (packed in corn oil) on their Passover
shelves, routinely restocks the Kosher-For-Passover soda pop display with
regular soda pop and so forth. One year, they put some corn-syrup Purim
lollipops in the Passover aisle. But then, what do you expect from a chain that
once advertised a sale on "Challah: A Passover
Tradition"? (the only Passover tradition related to challah is not eating
it!)

Vegetables

Most people will eat any fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables from the grocery
store, as long as the vegetable itself is kosher for
Passover.*

Artichoke (but watch out for marinated ones! the marinade may not be KFP!)

Asparagus

Broccoli

Brussels sprouts

Cabbage

Carrot

Cauliflower

Celery

Cucumber

Leek

Lettuce

Mushroom

Onion

Parsley

Parsnip

Peppers (e.g., bell peppers, chili peppers)

Potatoes (regular and sweet)

Radish

Spinach

Squash (eggplant, zucchini, spaghetti squash, etc.)

Sweet potatoes

Tomatoes

Turnip

... and many more too numerous to list!

*Some especially strict people will
not eat fresh or frozen vegetables, because the vegetables may have been cut
using non-Passover knives, or may have been exposed to chametz in transit.
People who observe this level of strictness eat only canned or pre-packaged
fruits and vegetables with KFP certification. These are often available in the
Passover aisle of the grocery store. On the other hand, some especially strict
people will not eat the canned fruits and vegetables, even with KFP
certification, because they don't trust the certification! These people will
eat only fruits and vegetables with removable skins, such as potatoes, carrots,
apples and bananas, and will eat them only after removing the skins.

Fruits

Pesach Options for Vegetarians and Vegans

All fruits and most vegetables are kosher for Passover, but they aren't a very
good source of protein. Many popular vegetarian sources of protein are not
kosher for Passover: beans, grains, pasta, soy products (tofu, tempeh, etc.)
and many seeds, among other things, are all forbidden. What is a good
vegetarian to do?

Vegetarians who eat eggs and dairy products are in luck: eggs and milk are
kosher for Passover and do not require special certification if they are
purchased before the holiday begins. Cottage cheese, yogurt, cream cheese and
sour cream require certification, but several leading national brands routinely
carry such certification. Hard cheeses (cheddar, mozzerella, etc.) are more
difficult to find, but only because kosher hard cheese itself is difficult to
find -- rennet that is used to harden cheese is a complicated kashrut issue.
Kosher brands of cheese, such as Miller's, are commonly kosher for Passover.

For vegans, who refrain from eggs and dairy, there are still a few options.
Most nuts are kosher for Passover, though you must make sure they are kosher
certified: processed nuts are made with preservatives BHA and BHT, which is
suspended in corn oil, not kosher for Passover. You can find a nice selection
of kosher for Passover nuts at
Oh
Nuts. Important Note: Peanuts are not nuts, they're legumes, and they are
not kosher for Passover.

Another exciting Passover protein option for vegetarians and vegans is quinoa,
the new world grain-that's-not-a-grain. Quinoa is one of the best, most
complete vegetarian sources of protein available. A recently as 2010, there was
much debate as to whether quinoa was forbidden as kitniyot, like peanuts, beans
and corn. More recently, major kosher certification organizations like
Star-KCRC
and Orthodox
Union have written articles expressing support for quinoa as a P in
accepting it (OK has also Some rabbis have held
that quinoa is kitniyot and is forbidden, but many widely-respected kosher
certification organizations now hold that quinoa is kosher for Passover. See
for example
Star-K. and
OU.
That's the good news; the bad news is, now you have to look for quinoa with
Kosher for Passover certification! At one time, the
CRC organization held that Ancient Harvest
brand whole grain quinoa (not flour or flakes) was kosher for Passover without
special certification, but I'm not surif they still say that. Some have said
that whole grain quinoa can be used but must be sifted carefully to make sure
no forbidden grains have slipped in.

Two of the recipes on this page are vegetarian (though not vegan):
matzah brie and matzah lasagna. I
have posted a number of vegetarian and vegan Passover recipes on my
blog.

Substitutions

As I said above, you should generally avoid substitutions and focus on foods
that are naturally kosher for Pesach. That being said, there are a few simple
substitutions that can give you more options for your Pesach cooking without
compromising flavor.

Potato Starch

Potato starch can be used instead of corn starch or flour to thicken
sauces, stews or gravies.

Matzah Meal

Matzah meal is ground up matzah in pieces about the size of bread crumbs.
It is an effective substitute for bread crumbs to make breading for things like
fried chicken or eggplant parmesan. In fact, I use it that way year round. It
is also an effective substitute for bread crumbs or rice in recipes where they
are used to hold ground beef together, such as stuffed peppers, meatloaf or
meatball recipes.

Matzah Farfel

Matzah farfel is chunks of matzah about the size of a dime. It is a useful
substitute for noodles, rice or pasta as a side dish. Serve your main course
over matzah farfel and it will soak up the sauces nicely. It can also be used
much like croutons on a salad, or can be used as the basis for a
Kosher-for-Passover stuffing.

Recipes

The ingredients specified for these recipes are all available with
Kosher-for-Passover certification in the supermarkets near me; your mileage may
vary. Make sure the ingredients you use are certified, as many of these things
contain grain products when they are not KFP-certified.

Matzah Brie (Fried Matzah)

There are many different ways to make matzah brie (usually rhymes with "rye,"
although some pronounce it like the cheese), and I will undoubtedly be branded
a heretic for my particular technique, but this is the way I learned to make it
and this is the way I like it. This recipe is really just French toast with
matzah instead of bread!

Prepare the same kind of soaking batter you would make for French toast: beat a
couple of eggs with some milk or water and some cinnamon. Break up some matzah
into pieces about the size of your palm (precision is not required) and soak
them in the batter until they are a little soggy but not falling apart. Fry
them in butter in a frying pan until they are crispy. If you need to use up the
last of the egg mixture, you can pour that into the pan with the last of the matzah.

Serve with honey (because it's hard to find syrup that is kosher for Passover
-- most syrup these days is corn syrup). It's good hot or cold, so you can put
your leftovers in the refrigerator and have them for lunch!

A packet of powdered onion soup mix (Goodmans makes a nice one that is
Kosher for Passover)

Some water

Mix the ketchup and soup mix with enough water to get a smooth consistency (not
a soupy one; about the consistency the ketchup originally was). Pour it over
the London broil in a roasting pan. Cook at 325 degrees until it's done
(depends on the size and shape of the meat). For more tender brisket, you may
want to marinate it for a while before cooking.

Matzah Lasagna

This is the ultimate expression of a substitution mentality, which is exactly
what I tell you to avoid throughout this page... and yet, I really like the way
it tastes. It is my Pesach guilty pleasure. Basically, this is a typical
lasagna with matzah substituted for the noodles and cottage cheese for the
ricotta (because ricotta cheese is usually made with grain vinegar, though it's
not called that on the ingredients list -- it's called catalyzer or something
goofy like that).

2 pieces of matzah

Tomato or spaghetti sauce (make sure it's kosher for Passover!)

Cottage cheese

1 egg

Parmesan cheese

Optional: chopped vegetables, such as chopped broccoli or zucchini

Mozzarella cheese, shredded

Beat the egg. Mix it with about 8 oz. cottage cheese and the parmesan cheese.
If using vegetables, mix those in as well. In an 8x8 inch cake pan
(conveniently the same size as a piece of matzah), put down a thin layer of
tomato sauce. Put a piece of matzah on top of that. Put a thin layer of tomato
sauce on top of the matzah. Spread the cottage cheese mix over the matzah. Put
a thin layer of sauce over the cottage cheese mix. Cover with the second piece
of matzah. Cover with sauce and shredded mozzarella. Bake at 350 degrees until
the mozzarella turns dark brown.